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When we say the word philosophy we generally think of ancient wisdom. Ancient thinking and wisdom that has been passed down and was really only relevant at that point in time in Ancient history 2000+ years ago.
And I think that’s unfortunate.
I think that philosophy is incredibly useful and that philosophy is necessary to living a life well lived. Aristotle, a famous philosopher, argued that a genuinely happy life required the fulfillment your own physical and mental well-being.
 

Where Do We Go From Here?

I believe that there is a revitalization that’s happening right now when it comes to philosophy.
For example, you see people like Ryan Holiday who is deeply passionate about stoicism, the branch of philosophy that he’s interested in. He’s creating a career for himself and writing books on these topics to share with the Western world. He’s able to remodel this ancient wisdom in a way that makes sense to people.
There are people like Jason Silva that are so deeply passionate about philosophy. And they’re able to take that and deliver in a digital form like this in the modern age and rebirth it again. I think that’s a beautiful thing because we need ways to absorb philosophy in this digital age.
We need to be asking questions of ourselves, of others, of humanity.
 

How Can Philosophy Help Me?

Science would not be possible without one of the pillars of philosophy, which is thought and growth for all of humanity. And that really speaks to the level of importance philosophy has.
I would put philosophy as the base level of what’s required in order to ask the questions in science.
All great scientists are also philosophers.
They embrace it and love it and value it and understand the value of it. They realize that without that analytic mind to go into a place of stillness to ask those right questions, they wouldn’t even be able to push what’s possible in science, to pick what to study in the first place.
Einstein and Carl Sagan are great philosophers who became scientists as a result of their thinking. They go down as scientists and astrophysicists but ultimately their core is philosophy. You’ll notice if you look at their biographies and histories and everything that they ever said.
You’ll always see their personal philosophy trickled into their entire way of being, their work, and how it affected their work. Their model of the universe, their philosophy about what the world and the universe means affected everything in their work. And many times it caused them to say that’s the outcome I want.
That’s what I want to figure out and they went that path.
And it’s incredibly necessary for us all to find a bit of practical philosophy. That we can ask the right questions of ourselves to be self-aware, to have high emotional intelligence, to know how to treat our neighbors, to know why we do what we do, and ask why we make the decisions we make.
To know how to live a life well lived.
Relationships, partners, friendships, all of that falls under the umbrella of philosophy and I think we should continue to rebirth that idea.
 
Photo credit: Brainy vs. Brain—CC license